Women divers make history

Tonia Couch (right) and Sarah Barrow

Published: 10:22pm, 22nd February 2012
Updated: 11:31am, 23rd February 2012

Tonia Couch and Sarah Barrow claimed Great Britain's first ever women's international diving medal after snatching bronze in the platform synchro at the FINA World Cup.

The duo looked dead and buried with a dive to go but nailed their back two-and-a-half somersault half twist to jump from eighth to third.

It meant a first medal for Britain at this week's meet at the Olympic Aquatics Centre and was a stunning breakthrough for the duo after they agonisingly finished fourth at last July's World Championships.

The pair had qualified for the final in second place, with a score of 319.86, and while they just failed to better that in the final they did enough to reach the podium.

"We are very, very happy," Barrow said. "We went into the final knowing we could get a medal. There were little ups and downs but the last dive proved that we're definitely capable of being in the medals."

Couch added: "We knew we had to nail that last dive. We knew we had to score 80, we've done that before. I said to Sarah 'let's do this'. I could see in her face she was confident, I was confident. We just did it."

Earlier, rising star Jack Laugher's hopes of a 3m springboard medal were dashed when he completely missed a dive he unveiled for the first time in international competition.

The 17-year-old had been third with two dives to go, after earning the first 10 of the evening, but immediately fell back after he badly over-rotated the forward four-and-a-half somersault.

China remained on course to scoop all the gold medals at this week's meet after they won both finals.

Chen Ruolin claimed her second gold when she paired with Wang Hao to win the synchro platform while world and Olympic champion He Chong kept up his dominance on the springboard.